Porn For Women

Porn For Women

One of the interesting debates over the past several years is what constitutes “Porn For Women”. A sampling of mainstream media articles on the topic comes back with wildly diverse opinions on the matter. A sampling is below:

From Salon.com “The Guardian is breaking news today about how — get this — women are making porn for other women. I kid, I kid — there is nothing new about this phenomenon. I was writing about feminist, female-directed porn back in college for my school newspaper. In the seven or so years since then, far more female directors and feminist production companies have premiered on the scene, but we’re still asking the same fundamental question: What is “porn for women,” exactly? I’m interested in a different question, though: Why is this a perennial subject of debate?

More often than not, “porn for women” is the punch line of a joke. You know, as the cheeky picture book “Porn for Women” imagines it, it’s a handsome man doing the dishes or vacuuming. While there’s certainly something there — a male partner doing his fair share of domestic duties is attractive, yes — it also perpetuates a bigger cultural fantasy of women as erotically passive and non-threatening. The joke of “porn for women” is that porn for women isn’t actually porn — yet the quest for the Holy Grail of female-friendly porn continues, and with great public interest…”

From Psychology Today “Why do we care so much about porn for women?” and the answer is mainly focused on how women have such different desires there can be no porn for women. Which is rather odd, there are lots of different types of porn for men to satisfy their individual tastes (young, milf, big butts, big breasts, anal, etc.). So why wouldn’t there be porn for women which would vary with their particular preferences? Many women do check out porn on dvd (with and without their partners) as well as on-line, even if they may not spend as much time on it as the guys…but they do often complain that they can’t find what they want. The article suggested this was because what one woman wants is so different from another, one woman’s porn was an x-rated Twilight while another’s was gay porn…”

Coleen Singer is a writer, photographer, film editor and all-around geeky gal at Sssh.com, where she often waxes eloquent about sex, porn, sex toys, censorship, the literary and pandering evils of Fifty Shades of Grey and other topics not likely to be found on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist. She is also the editor and curator of EroticScribes.com. When she is not doing all of the above, Singer is an amateur stock-car racer and enjoys modifying vintage 1970s cars for the racetrack. Oh, she also likes porn.